Goliath’s curse

A new book traces the rise and fall of both ancient to modern civilisations with worrying implications for a world increasingly dominated by aggressive authoritarian states such as Russia, China and – lamentably – the USA.

Gradually, then suddenly

Ernest Hemingway observed in The Sun Also Rises that bankruptcy occurs gradually and then suddenly, and this should also be treated as a rule of geopolitical affairs.

An Indigenous ocean

Geopolitical inequalities in the Pacific should be taken into account in research, scholarship and analysis in the region.

Turn and face the strange

While some of the worst fears around COVID-19 haven’t come to pass, the world has still been turned upside down over the course of the last year.

Another bloody century

The triple crises of geopolitical power shifts, the Covid-19 pandemic and the economic disasters that flow from it will shape global politics, restructure global supply chains and bring an end to unregulated globalisation.

Geo-politics on planet virus

We’re still in the early days of what might prove an 18-month battering of the international order, and aggressive states such as China and Russia may look to exploit western weakness with audacious power-grabbing moves.